When you are working with multiple projects, for example a number of microservices, it becomes problematic to have an IntelliJ instance open for each of those.
There is a trick that allows us to have multiple projects open inside one IntelliJ instance (this saves time, space and RAM :)).
Basics steps are as follows:
- Create a new directory, for example my_projects_workspace
- Open IntelliJ and click File -> New -> Project -> Empty Project -> For location, select the directory you just created -> Finish
- Now, in command line, place yourself in that directory and do a git checkout for each of the projects you want (optional, but makes sense for organizing stuff)
- Now lets add these projects to our IntelliJ project. Open IntelliJ project created in step 2, click File -> New -> Module from existing sources -> Select project to import -> Import module from external model, Select Maven (if using Maven), Next -> Enable auto-import and set SDK -> Finish
- Repeat step 4 for each project you want to import